N.Z. MEDICAL SERVICE

Grey River Argus, 21 April 1945, Page 5

N.Z. MEDICAL SERVICE

B.M.A. MISTAKES Lesson for Australian Doctors (R'*c 10.20.) MELBOURNE, Apr. 20. New Zealand’s State medical service has its lessons for Australia, now destined for some form of such a. service, writes Mr. Douglas Brass in the Melbourne “Argus.” Mr. Brass, a former New Zealand journalist, who is now one of Australia’s best-known overseas correspondents, is visiting the Dominion. “The main lesson is that when a State medical service is introduced, the British Medical Association in Australia must not behave as it did in New Zealand,” says Mr. Brass. “It must work with the Government, even under duress. Most New Zealanders like their State medical service, he adds. More and more doctors are liking it. Some. or them are doing very • well out or it, since it means guaranteed payments and no bad debts. Everyone ana everything have come out of the scheme pretty well—everyone and everything save the British Medical Association, and, in the view ot thoughtful doctors, the status of disinterested medical ’ science. The 8.M.A., early in the piece, broke off diplomatic relations with the Government, stubbornly refusing to have anything to do as an organisation with a medical plan ..it had violently and unavailingly resisted. Had it played ball, it might easily have produced a less hasty plan, more capable o.f insuring against abuse. Now, with the Labour plan three years under way, it is faced with weakened loyalties among its members.” Mr. Brass says that a three years’ trial of the fee for service system has shown that it is workable and simple, but is open to abuse. Although allegations may be coloured, it is common gossip that some doctors use the guaranteed visit payment to build up fortunes. It is suggested that some doctors may conceal part of Their incomes, by accepting payments over and above the regulation fee. Many doctors claim that opposition to a universally available service has cost, the B.M.A. the opportunity of helping to formulate a scheme which has come to stay. Mr. Brass reports one politically anti-Government doctor as saying to him: “In spite of it? faults, I hive seen in the national health scheme a genuine progressive effort in the public interest. I deplore our lack of cooperation, because without it there will be initial mistakes which it will be hard to correct —and both the public and the profession will suffer.” “In Australia,” Mr. Brass therefore concludes, “the B.M.A. will defeat its own interests if it does rot adopt a more conciliatory and co-op-erative attitude towards the Government’s medical plans.